


Admiral Motti or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Superlaser

by Bunn1cula



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy, Star Wars: From a Certain Point of View
Genre: DSI, Death Star, Gen, Imperial Officers (Star Wars), OT imperial villains, imperial bitchiness, intensely unlikeable characters, that nevertheless believe they are All That and a bag of Biscuit Baron, who despite their inherent trash bagginess i love anyway
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-27
Updated: 2019-09-27
Packaged: 2020-10-29 11:56:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20796251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bunn1cula/pseuds/Bunn1cula
Summary: The whole point of a doomsday machine is lost if you keep it a secret.





	Admiral Motti or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Superlaser

Conan Antonio Motti was a simple man. A simple man, with simple wants. 

And the thing he wanted most was the simplest thing of all: everything.

Smaller desires had always been granted easily to him; when he was eight, he’d wanted a toy speeder. He’d gotten a pod racer, the fastest in Seswenna sector. It had been a wonder he’d made it to nine. 

When he was fifteen, he’d wanted the local Moff’s youngest daughter; he’d gotten her _and_ her older sister. He’d never understood the point of monogamy since. His wife may or may not have known this; he didn’t care either way. 

When he entered the Imperial Navy, he’d wanted a commission; he was sworn in at Prefsbelt as a lieutenant at nineteen and made rear admiral by twenty eight. At thirty-two, he was on the Emperor’s short list for Moff. He expected the promotion notice, a mere formality, any day now.

Chief of the Imperial Navy, check. Second in command of the Death Star, check. (Tagge may have been his cabinet equal but was ignorant about the workings of the station to the point that he couldn’t find the nearest head without an escort. He did not count.)

One would be forgiven for thinking that Motti had it all. But to Motti, only one thing stood between himself and his destiny, and that was Grand Moff Wilhuff Tarkin. 

To the observer, Motti was a Tarkin loyalist. Their families were intertwined through several marriages over the millennia, the most recent having occurred within their lifetimes. Motti estimated they were distant cousins several times over. This had never figured to his advantage, however. He’d gotten to where he was by perseverance and sheer will, and it had taken time and finesse to win Tarkin’s attention. 

Earlier in their association, Motti had admired Tarkin to a degree that embarrassed him now. He’d begun with flattering holo messages and then graduated to hovering outside Ruling Council briefings until he was able to press his first meeting. 

He’d emulated Tarkin’s philosophy and rhetoric and even his mannerisms, for a time. If Tarkin had noticed this behavior, he’d been too gracious to address it. Anyhow, it had worked. Motti had gained a place in Tarkin’s inner circle and for a time had proudly considered himself the Grand Moff’s protege. 

And then it wasn’t enough. Because it never could be.

To Motti, Tarkin had once been like a god. Now he was just in the way.

To some degree, the Tarkin Doctrine had been a brilliant treatise; absolutism was exactly what the fractured galaxy needed in these troubled times. Fear was the Empire’s most powerful tool. The Republic had been too impotent to understand this, and Tarkin’s document had so eloquently put into words the unquestionably apt principle behind Palpatine’s coup. Any deviation from strict adherence to Imperial law would be answered with extreme prejudice. Anarchy, separatism and terrorism would all be annihilated. 

The essential problem, Motti reasoned, was that the Tarkin Doctrine was too lenient. Ruling through fear of reprisals instead of reprisals themselves was weak. The only way to put down rising violence was with more extreme violence. If blood must flow ungated to the bottom depths of Coruscant until complete order was regained and maintained, so be it. 

The Tarkin Doctrine was a start, but to Motti, that was all it was. Absolute fear was the only way to ensure absolute control. And absolute fear could never be inspired from mere threat. 

Motti knew how to achieve that absolute fear. 

Use the Death Star. As soon as possible. 

____

The Joint Chiefs conference had been an unqualified, undignified cocksucking disaster. 

Motti fumed, thin lips mashed into a singularity-deep scowl, his fingertips quivering over a holonet keypad, three sentences in to a strongly-worded message to the Ruling Council regarding Lord Vader’s vicious physical attack that had occurred without provocation in the War Room of the Death Star. 

Vader. If Motti was Tarkin’s lapdog, as the petty rumors were fond of saying, then Vader was Tarkin’s rancor. And this rancor, Motti reckoned, needed to be chained in a pit. Cabinet meetings were no place for untamed pets. 

Motti allowed himself a moment to muse. Who _was_ Vader, anyhow? Wheezy old-timers like Yularen and Romodi said he’d appeared overnight right after the Clone Wars as Palpatine’s minion, and the only common knowledge about him was that he was from Mustafar and styled himself a Sith. 

A _Sith_…as if anything could be more pretentious. Motti sneered to himself at his elaborately-carved Wroshyr-wood desk, a gift the year before from Governor Darcc after the navy did what the occupying army could not and blow the Rebel invasion off Kashyyyk and out of the sector. The gift had been a thinly-veiled attempt on Darcc’s part to curry favor. Motti reckoned by now Darcc would have realized the bribe had been in vain. But it was a nice desk. 

He thought back to the emotionless faces at the table while he was nearly strangling to death. Nearly as vexing to him as Lord Vader were Cassio Tagge and Moradmin Bast. They were both so far up Tarkin’s ass as to chew his meat for him. 

Bast was the lesser problem. As Tarkin’s aide, he had plenty of face time with the Grand Moff, but he was too stupid to make the best use of it for himself. Bast showed very little personal ambition and seemed to service only the Empire. He was an unquestionable bore. Unfortunately for Motti, Bast was Tagge’s man and therefore his mouthpiece. Which meant Bast and those woolly caterpillars he wore for sideburns had to go. 

Tagge was another matter. Unlike Bast, he had an actual brain beneath his unfortunate hairstyle (which Motti suspected the general barbered himself; for one of the richest sons of bitches in the galaxy, Tagge was also one of its notoriously cheapest). 

Tagge was smart, cunning, and practical. And had nearly unlimited influence thanks to his powerful family. A serious threat, but not without his weaknesses, and he’d shown his pitiful hand today. Paranoia…outright doubt in the Death Star and therefore, one could reasonably conjecture, the Empire itself…oh, yes. These statements had played right into Motti’s hands. Tagge was a relic, grasping at the straws of the old way of doing things. After Motti’s report, he’d soon be a footnote in Joint Chiefs history. 

This only left Vader. Surely even he had a weakness. Motti would find it. 

Palpatine, Motti felt sure, must understand the shortcomings of the Tarkin Doctrine. He would undoubtedly recognize the superiority of Motti’s ideology. 

One day, he mused, resting his fingers on the keypad, the Motti Manifesto would be taught in every military academy and upper-level philosophy program across the galaxy. 

Until then, he bided his time for the private conference with the Emperor—and the promotion—that he was certain was inevitable. The incident report he was about to write would help cement his destiny. 

______

“The princess refuses to talk.”

Tarkin stood facing the viewport in his grand office, hands folded behind his back. From behind, he resembled a scarecrow standing watch over the field of growing ships around the station. 

Motti remained seated at one of the chairs facing Tarkin’s vast desk. He studied the old man, just as he’d done over the years. Tarkin stood motionless, his breathing slow and steady, his voice even. The picture of cool composure. But Motti was a keen observer. His intuition knew better. 

Tarkin was rattled. 

“We can _make_ her talk,” said Motti. 

“She has resisted the interrogation droid at its highest level. Lord Vader is now dealing with her.”

Motti’s eyebrows quirked upward at this news, but he quickly assumed a sardonic expression before Tarkin might notice. “That’s a politician for you.”

“That,” said Tarkin, turning to face Motti, “is a teenage girl posing as a diplomat in order to commit espionage under her father’s tutelage, both tactics no doubt intended to mitigate any reprisals. Organa has grown very bold indeed and this act cannot be tolerated.”

“I agree.”

“That the missing plans are of this station is irrelevant; they now act as our tool to find the location of the Rebel base. We must learn where it is by any means necessary.”

“Again, I agree.” Motti stood and approached Tarkin. 

“I _will_ have this information. It is more important than any diplomatic difficulty. If she must die, so be it."

“She doesn’t have to.” Motti’s skin prickled. His kill came into view. 

Tarkin leveled a condescending stare dead into Motti’s eyes. “You have an idea you wish to impart, Admiral?”

Target locked. This was it. 

“Use this station. Now.”

Tarkin stroked his lip but otherwise betrayed no reaction. “You did make your bellicose opinion abundantly clear in the briefing, Admiral.” 

“You know I’m right.”

“I know you are ambitious and prone to grandiosity,” countered Tarkin. 

“If Organa isn’t suppressed in the most final of terms then he and his followers will continue corroding the very foundation of this government until there is nothing left but anarchy. This is perhaps the most important time in our galaxy’s history. The moment to decide the future is now.” Motti curled his hand into a half-raised fist. His adrenaline surged. He could already smell the acrid ashes of a pulverized planet, taste them on the back of his tongue. “We must crush the Rebellion permanently. We do this by striking at its head and its heart.”

Tarkin continued to gaze at him through slitted lids for a moment before turning to face the viewport again. “Your proposed target is then Alderaan.”

“Yes.” It was hard for Motti to keep his voice steady. His heart fired his pulse like cannons against his eardrums. 

“One of the oldest and most influential Core Worlds. With some of the greatest number of cultural artifacts and ancient repositories of knowledge. And,” Tarkin added, “the one world without a planetary defense system.”

“Words are their weapons. Dissent is their violence. End them, and we preserve order.”

“There are those that would call you a monster for this, Admiral.”

“Perhaps,” though Motti doubted it. The winners, as they say, write history. “But it’s worth the end result.”

Tarkin was silent. He appeared to watch a formation of TIEs swarm out from a hangar somewhere below on the station. 

“Be in the weapons room in two hours. We will see what the princess thinks of your idea.”

____

The princess had given up the Rebel base location. Alderaan was destroyed. The plan had worked. 

Except that it hadn’t. The haughty bitch had lied. (Haughty, but not unattractive—and braless. He would enjoy fantasizing later about those teasing young breasts joggling under her thin gown. And the sundry ways _he_ could extract information from her.) She was back in her cell awaiting execution. 

When Motti arrived for a strategy meeting with Tarkin and Tagge, he was surprised to find only Bast and his woolly caterpillars and beady eyes there, smoking a cigarette. “What’s going on?” Motti demanded. “Where are the others?”

Bast folded his gloved hands on the table in a casual manner, cigarette between his fingers. “Probably on the overbridge by now. They finished half an hour ago. General Tagge ordered me to wait for you. I thank you for eventually coming—I have a personal holocall scheduled in fifteen minutes.”

“The memo said sixteen hundred hours!”

"Fifteen hundred, sir. Perhaps it was a typo. The dictation droids have gotten quirky lately.” 

“Unbelievable,” growled Motti. This was Tagge’s doing, the rat. The level of pettiness was staggering. “Well, what did Tagge direct you to convey to me? You may as well act the message boy you’ve always been for him.” 

Bast pursed his lips and smirked, just for a second. He cleared his throat. “You and I have an assignment.”

“What are you talking about? What assignment?”

“General Tagge feels very strongly that the Rebellion having our technical readouts is a serious concern. There may indeed be some reason they wanted them so badly. He expressed this once again to Grand Moff Tarkin, who eventually agreed to an investigation.”

Motti grunted. “A waste of time.”

“The inspection is to be intensive and exhaustive. We must scour all the technical data, going back to the very first draft.” Bast paused and dragged on his cigarette. 

“What does any of this have to do with me?”

Bast looked like he relished giving the answer. His eyes glinted like fossilized manure. “The Grand Moff appointed General Tagge to lead the enquiry, however the general is deferring to your superior technical knowledge of the station.”

“You are positively joking.”

“You know more about the mechanics than the general. He felt you would be a better fit for the job. The Grand Moff concurred.” 

“This is outrageous—a complete waste of resources and my time! I have too many other responsibilities than to get buried in such a fool’s errand.”

“General Tagge has volunteered to assume station command duties for the both of you.”

“Of course he has!” spat Motti. This transparent ploy to get him out of the way and regain favor with Tarkin after vocally supporting the Senate in the briefing was low, even for Tagge. It was so obvious, so starkly naked in its design as to be virtually flaccid and dangling. Damn him and his scheming. Damn him and that crooked upside-down bowl on his head. How had Tarkin not seen right through this?

Except Tarkin most _certainly_ had seen right through this. Seen it, permitted it and emboldened it. It was beyond time for him to go. 

“And let me guess,” he sneered at Bast, “you’re to assist me in this…this—asinine task.”

“That’s about the gist of it, sir.” Bast took one last puff on his cigarette and stood. 

“Naturally. Tagge has to send his spy, of course.”

Bast grinned and looked down, then shifted his stance and composed his face. “If you’ll pardon me, sir, I should be on my way. The missus will be touchy if I’m late to take her call. She’s expecting our third and the hormones are, well, imbalanced. I’m sure you understand.”

If Bast expected to be congratulated, he would not be. “You are dismissed.”

“Oh,” said Bast, pausing in the hatchway and touching his cap, “and about the mix-up, Admiral…I’ll convey your regrets to the Grand Moff.”

Motti glared at the hatch as it closed. 

____

The engineering data point room to which they’d been assigned was cramped. And hot. 

Motti’s eyes glazed over as he watched the boffins pour over files and schematics. He was sweating. Motti hated to sweat. It made him even more testy and ill-tempered than he usually was. 

When Bast had informed him of this assignment, Motti had pictured a vast array of engineers and architects working under him, doing the dirty work. Instead, Tarkin had assigned four men. 

_Four_ men. Which really meant three, with how often Bast was gone on his usual pandering duties to Tarkin. Not that Motti minded terribly; having Bast in the same stifling closet for ten hours a day was noxious. 

(Not to mention one of the “men” assigned to the job was a woman—a dirty-dishwater blonde, bosomy thing, not especially pretty. Whenever Bast was there, he pestered the poor girl so pathetically it made Motti nauseous.)

He was having to sift through files himself to hasten the process, so he could get back and knock Tagge back into his proper place. The longer he was gone, the more likely Tagge could further undermine him. Time was of the essence. 

The hatch opened and Tarkin strode into the room, closely followed by Tagge and Bast. Motti’s grogginess evaporated instantly. 

“Greetings, Admiral,” said Tagge in that clattering-bag-of-gravel voice of his. “We’ve come to see your little cave.”

“I did tell you it was small,” snickered Bast. 

Motti shot him a filthy look. “Yes, it is small. Too small for the task.” He looked to Tarkin. “I request an upgrade in facilities.”

“Request denied,” said Tarkin. “You have eight hours to complete this endeavor. There is no time to waste.”

“Eight hours? Why?” asked Motti. 

“Because,” said Tagge, gloating like a Hutt that had just scammed a million credits, “in twelve hours we will be at the Rebel base. We have tracked the ship that took the Princess.”

“We must be assured that this station is fully prepared for battle,” said Tarkin. “I do not anticipate that the Rebels will pose a danger to us, but this directive now comes from the Emperor himself.”

The Emperor! Motti’s heart skipped a beat. 

“Chief Bast will be exclusively at your disposal for the remainder of this time,” said Tarkin. 

Motti’s mouth soured. He didn’t much drink, but at that moment he’d have given an eye for a carafe of brandy and a sedative.

Tarkin fixed them both with a peremptory stare. “I expect the best from both of you. You will report to me on the overbridge at twelve hundred hours tomorrow.” He strode away with Tagge following close enough behind him they could have been in coitus. 

Bast leaned on a data terminal monitor and lightly folded his arms. “Guess you and I are back going steady. Can’t say I’ve been crying in my pillow, though.”

“You are dangerously insubordinate, Chief,” warned Motti, turning his attention back to his viewscreen. “Get to work.” 

Bast, of course, slid into the data terminal next to the female engineer. He whispered something to her that improbably made her giggle. Revolting. 

Motti’s eyes lost focus again as he turned things over in his mind. The Emperor was now aware of this task, and that he was in command of it. The station was impermeable; he’d staked his reputation on it. They wouldn’t find anything. 

He’d make sure of it. 

____

“Admiral,” squawked one comlink speaker, “another wave of enemy fighters is inbound.”

“Like flies to a space slug, Captain,” scoffed Motti. From the viewport in the Navy Ops office just off the overbridge, he could see distant flares of light bursting in the direction of the equatorial trench. He was not concerned. 

“Sir, the turbolaser towers are taking a beating from those A-Wings. And the X-Wings are evading our batteries—they’re using our targeting computer safety controls to their advantage.”

The safety controls that prevented the turbolasers from firing when any portion of the station was within its target range. Of course. “Disable that feature.”

“We can’t, sir. The targeting terminals will register that as a slicing attempt and shut down.” The captain’s message was interrupted by a noisy squelch. “Sir—there’s just been an explosion within our entire array’s capacitor banks! We won’t be able to keep firing for much—”

The transmission cut off. 

_“The Rebel base will be in firing range in ten minutes_,” came the announcement. 

Damage and casualty reports were starting to arrive in spates. Motti was mildly surprised at the number, but not alarmed. The quadanium plating of the station would prevent any damage from going beyond superficial. 

The hatch to the Ops office opened and Chief Bast hustled in, looking slightly ruffled. “I—I thought I would find you at your command post, Admiral.”

“For what purpose?” Motti snapped. “This is merely a skirmish before we reach firing range—and I don’t see that General Tagge considered this important enough to be on the overbridge, either. Where is he, anyway?”

Bast swallowed and ignored the question. “Sir, I should like to show you something.”

“It had better be your back at my door. We may only be at Defstat Three but I _am_ busy.”

“Sir, Lieutenant Lashen may have found something—”

Lashen…oh, right—big tits, plain face. “The engineering girl?” 

“Y-yes, sir. The Rebels are not attacking us in a random manner. When we ran their pattern through the simulator, the lieutenant pointed out a possible target within their trajectory.”

“What could you possibly be talking about?” 

“There is a small thermal exhaust port in their path leading to the main reactor. It leaves accessible a point that could cause a catastrophic chain reaction if targeted.”

“_One_ small port? That’s it? Where is it located?”

“In the equatorial trench. Exactly where the starfighters are attacking us.”

“This is a joke,” said Motti. “Nothing could get past the ion cannons. Or our TIEs.”

“Yet they manage to continue their attack runs.”

Motti laughed. Vader was wrong about who lacked faith around here. “This does not concern me, Chief. This is barely worth the time explaining, much less scrutinizing.”

Bast grimaced. “I wished to enlist your expertise before bringing this to Grand Moff Tarkin, but I see now that I have only wasted valuable time.”

“And I will not allow you to waste his time or attention, either. Drop the matter.”

“Sir, I cannot in good conscience—”

Motti rose from his desk, nostrils flaring. “Chief Bast, I am ordering you to drop this immediately.”

Bast held his gaze for a moment, then turned his back and opened the hatch. The computerized din of the overbridge flooded into the room. 

_“The Rebel base will be in attack range in seven minutes.”_

“Unless,” Motti called, “you’d like me to send the security tapes from outside your quarters back home to Dura-Kahn.” 

Bast froze. Slowly, he turned to face Motti, his face white as a stormtrooper’s helmet. “What did you just say?”

Motti smiled, savoring the moment. He sauntered forward until he was close enough to smell Bast’s cheap aftershave. “Yes, I did see you and Lieutenant—Lashen, is it?—engaging in some brazen fraternization. I’m wondering if it would interest your…imbalanced wife at home to see.”

Bast’s lips quivered. “You’ve been _surveilling_ me?”

“Don’t worry, Chief, I can keep a secret. If it benefits me.”

The hatch door slid back closed and shut Bast in like vermin in a trap. 

Motti couldn’t help screwing the knife in further. “I’m also wondering if your wife is getting up to similar adventures. I personally find it distasteful, but you know—some people do have pregnancy fetishes.”

Bast’s hooded little eyes bulged and he stepped forward, fists clenched, teeth bared. “I should like to break your jaw for that,” he hissed. “Were it not for my commission.”

“Do it and I’ll make sure you never set foot outside a Kessel spice mine.”

Bast went silent. Motti imagined the rusty hamster wheel in his head spinning too fast for its creaky axel and caroming off into what passed for his temporal lobe. Not for the first time, he questioned Tarkin’s wisdom in making this dimwit his aide.

Bast’s jaw clenched beneath his beastly sideburns. He stared at Motti, deranged-looking as a death stick tweaker. “You knew…” he whispered. “You _knew_!” 

“Knew what?”

“_You_ took the data tape”.

“Oh, please.” Bast was an idiot but Motti’s throat went a little dry.

“You’re the only one who could have. Lashen catalogued everything; she said one tape was unaccounted for. I—I had simply assumed it had been lost before, or it had been corrupted and discarded. But you _stole_ it.”

Motti looked Bast over, appraising him. “You have no proof of anything.”

_“The Rebel base will be in attack range in five minutes.”_

“I don’t need proof. My word alone is enough for an ISB investigation.”

“Into what, exactly?”

“You stole a classified data tape, then suppressed its indication of a weakness. Even now, you are attempting to obstruct me from—”

Motti waved a hand. “You’re unhinged. And pathetic.”

“This is sabotage, Admiral. Sabotage and treason.”

“And this, Chief Bast, is insubordination. You have five seconds to leave this room before I have you arrested and sent to Wobani.”

“You’re afraid,” said Bast, unbudging. “You know Tarkin will take my word over yours."

“Four seconds—”

Bast curled his lip and narrowed his eyes even squintier than usual. “I’ll tell you something, Admiral; you underestimate those around you. You are blinded by your own arrogance.”

“And I’ll tell _you_ something—you grossly overestimate the chances of Tarkin even giving half an ear to your little theory. If you think _my_ ego is staked to this station!—this is Tarkin’s crowning glory. If you’re thinking of getting in the way of that, just ask Director Krennic how that worked out for him.”

Bast looked appalled. Krennic’s empty chair in the conference room, silent and accusing, served as a visceral reminder of what happened to Tarkin’s detractors. Even mentioning the name was regarded by every joint chief as bad luck. 

“One day,” Bast said, “all the fires you’ve set along the way in your life will catch up to you. And I should very much like to watch you burn.” 

Smug, stupid bastard. Motti didn’t even waste a sneer at his back when he slithered out the door to the overbridge, undoubtedly straight to Tarkin. 

However superfluous the situation, Motti turned his attention back to duty. The comm channels bleated cacophonous gibberish. He filtered through the onslaught of transmissions to pick out the pertinent data: a fire in section North 7 A66 had shut down power to that grid, killing the shield protectors. An explosion had damaged at least one sublight drive in South 7 B12. Voice transmissions from the bridges were starting to sound less like commanders and more like first-tour ensigns. 

Then one voice rose above the rest on one of the TIE channels. One unmistakable voice.

_“I’ll take them myself. Cover me.”_

Fuck me, thought Motti. His body sang in endorphin-fueled euphoria. 

_Darth Vader_ was in a TIE fighter_. _Dogfighting Rebels. What perfect hubris! The chances he’d sealed his own doom in some fit of Force-conceited delusion of heroics was better than great. The Emperor’s own emissary, that freakish mandroid, flying an unshielded craft in battle! Motti couldn’t believe his fortune. 

_“Rebel Base three minutes and closing.”_

Things were falling into their rightful place. Vader, Tagge, Tarkin…soon his every rival would be neutralized. He would seize his just inheritance. 

A low resonance grew louder and deepened, rattling a datapad on Motti’s desk. He didn’t need any flashing sensors to tell him it was the superlaser powering up. In seconds, the Rebellion would be annihilated. 

Bast had been wrong. Fires weren’t chasing Motti; they’d lit the path to his destiny. 


End file.
